


The Ghost of Summer Past

by Albione



Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017), Call Me By Your Name - All Media Types, Call Me by Your Name - André Aciman
Genre: Alternate Universe, Canonical Character Death, Drama, M/M, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-27
Updated: 2018-08-27
Packaged: 2019-07-03 10:02:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15816645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Albione/pseuds/Albione
Summary: Oliver is in Rome thirty-five years after that summer and he thinks he sees a ghost.





	The Ghost of Summer Past

**Author's Note:**

> It is a wet Bank Holiday, all is grey and I wrote this. Too much fluff in Coda.  
> Oliver and Elio have the great possibility of being the protagonists of infinite stories. Little by little I am trying them all out, the good, the bad and the ugly!  
> Bear in mind that two of my favourite films are Death in Venice and Dr Zhivago, I recommend them both if you have never seen them, but they are not feel good films, if you thought Call Me by Your Name was sad, you are in for a shock. Angst and drama are my guilty pleasure, and I have just indulged. You have been warned!  
> Please leave a comment, even if to doubt my mental state...

Professor Oliver Goldberg left the hotel Minerva and started to walk towards Piazza Navona; it was a hot late August evening in Rome and he was feeling the heat.

He decided to stop off in Rome on a whim after his son’s stylish wedding in Puglia, it was the thirty-fifth anniversary of “That Summer” and soon he would be sixty.  
He had obtained much from life, he was a respected professor of philosophy, wrote many books that were highly regarded and had “Made philosophy sexy” as one reviewer had written. He was also divorced; his wife had left him over ten years ago once their sons had left home.

As he walked through side streets, to avoid the crowds of tourists, he wondered why he felt the need to be in Rome; he had changed his flight and jumped onto a train.  
He had been back many times before, but all of a sudden he knew that he had to walk these cobblestones and revisit the life he could have had, but he had discarded.  
Santa Maria della Pace was the same as all those years ago, he could hear a voice saying “Oliver, kiss me!” He closed his eyes to recreate that moment when he was young, but it was elusive.

As he opened his eyes there was a boy walking down the street; brown curls, long legs and arms, skinny but graceful. He was even wearing jeans shorts and a striped t-shirt.  
“Elio” he whispered, but of course it could not be. He followed the boy, transfixed.  
“He will think I am some perverted old man, but I need to see his face!” He walked a bit faster, as to overtake him, so to be disappointed when he saw the gormless face of some adenoidal adolescent. 

The boy stopped to look at a shop window, Oliver passed on, casually glancing at the profile.  
“Good God! Elio!” He might have said it aloud, but he was rattled.  
The same straight nose, plump lips and long neck. Elio in Rome as young as he was a lifetime ago. And here was Oliver, old and pathetic.  
He felt a pain in his chest; he always felt a pain in his chest when he thought of that summer. He leaned against a wall to catch his breath; the rough surface scratched his back, but brought him back to the present.  
Who was this boy? A ghost to haunt him and remind him of how much he had lost? 

His life had been good, but there was always something missing; his wife knew that and took the decision to leave him. His sons were fond of him, but they always the feeling that they did not really know him.  
Oliver had known himself only once in his life, thirty-five years ago, and it had lasted two weeks. 

He was breathless, the boy walked past him and gave him a puzzled look; he turned the corner and Oliver knew that he did not want to lose sight of him, this visual memory of a past life.  
As he followed he realised he was in via Santa Maria dell’Anima, it was getting dark and the street lights were starting to light up. 

“Elio, Elio, Elio” The voice called him by his name, he could feel the body pressed to him, hands holding onto his shirt. Elio had known that it was the end; he knew but hoped that he was wrong.  
The ghost walked down the street, he was not in a hurry; he would stop to look at a car or a doorway, curious of everything.  
Oliver felt the pain in his chest move along his arm; he was approaching the place he had always feared to return to.  
The wall where he had kissed Elio with the raw desperation of possession and loss. 

There was a crash of falling plates from one of the restaurants, Oliver nearly jumped, the boy-ghost turned and smiled.  
The cut of the eyes, sleepy but full of intelligence, the curve of the mouth, they all were Elio. 

Oliver staggered to the wall where he tried to tear Elio’s soul so he could make it his own and rested his hands in the exact place he had rested them that summer night.  
He could feel Elio kissing him, his legs around his waist. He turned to look at the ghost that was reading the messages left on the statue of Pasquino.  
Oliver did not care; there was Elio in his arms, Elio’s taste in his mouth.  
He felt the cobbles beating as his heart was, faster and faster; the wall came towards him and he fell to the ground.

“Antonio, where were you? I was looking for you. We need to catch the train to B in less than an hour.”  
“Sorry dad, I was lost in thought.”  
There was a crowd just behind them. “Poveretto!” “Call an ambulance!” “E morto!”  
“What’s happened?” they asked a passer-by. “A tourist just had a heart attack. I think he died.”  
“Poor man” Elio said as the sirens approached.


End file.
